Mayor issues order to create student rental housing market task force

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox issued an executive order today to create a task force to study the student rental housing market in the city.

File | The Tuscaloosa News

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

Published: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 12:47 p.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 12:47 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | Has the number of student-based apartment complexes grown too high?

That's an answer that Mayor Walt Maddox is seeking with the formation Wednesday of a student rental housing task force.

"The recent boom of new student housing developments has produced a great deal of questions and concerns from all corners of our community," Maddox said in a press release announcing the task force's formation. "It's critical the city receive and review comprehensive data and input from experts to examine it thoroughly."

According to the executive order authorizing its formation, the task force will consist of 16 to 20 members representing a wide range of groups and agencies related to student housing and its regulation.

Maddox and City Council President Harrison Taylor will appoint two members each, and two members of the city's Planning and Zoning Commission also will be named to the task force.

One member from both the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment and Historic Preservation Commission also will be appointed, and the University of Alabama, Stillman College, Shelton State University, the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, the Tuscaloosa Association of Realtors, the Home Builders Association of Tuscaloosa, the Alabama Center for Real Estate and the resident advocacy group Tuscaloosa Neighbors Together will all get to choose one member.

Additionally, the chairperson of the task force will have the option of appointing four additional members to bring the total number of task force appointees to 20. However, any members named by the chairperson must be approved by a majority of the task force as a whole.

Steven Rumsey, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, praised the formation of the task force and said the need for its guidance has been growing in recent years.

"I believe the mayor is wise in forming (this) housing task force," Rumsey said. "The obstacles facing higher ed in the short and long term, the mountainous and growing pipeline of mega student housing projects — coupled with the on going rebuild taking place due to the devastation of the April 2011 tornado — has (given) our community leadership a rightful cause for pause."

Rumsey said he would like to see commission members Bill Wright and Robert Reynolds, the co-chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, as the commission's representatives on the task force.

Wright, Rumsey said, has a background in downtown businesses and Reynolds has experience in banking and finance along with a connection to the city's historic neighborhoods.

Rumsey said he would not ask to be named to the task force despite giving an in-depth presentation last week to the YMCA Men's Club on his growing concerns related to the recent increase in multifamily developments built to serve college students.

He provided the group with data that showed UA has added about 13,000 students for a total student population of about 33,500 since 2002. In that same time, the city has seen the construction of 12,432 new multifamily bedrooms with another 8,711 in the works.

Factoring in the 3,700-bed increase on campus, that leaves almost 12,000 private student bedrooms unfilled.

That, Rumsey said, could be a problem.

"As chair, I will be materially privy to the (task force's) proceedings ...," Rumsey said. "When the task force makes a recommendation of their findings, I will be involved because it will likely require action from our commission."

The purpose of the task force, according to the mayor's executive order, is to evaluate the "current and future student rental housing markets in Tuscaloosa, especially in regard to whether the market is becoming overly saturated, and whether the city can or should take measures to address housing needs."

Other goals of the group are to look at planning, land use, zoning or other regulations that can allow for an orderly development of student housing as well as infrastructure upgrades or improvements that will be needed to accommodate the growth in student-based apartment complexes.

The first meeting of the task force will be organized by John McConnell, director of the city's Planning and Development Services, and the group has been issued a Nov. 5 deadline to submit a report of its findings and recommendations.

These meetings will be open to the public and conducted in accordance with the state's Open Meetings Law, the executive order said.